Quasi-War VI - The Age of Revolution

Chapter 36: Initial Tremors
November, 1908
Indiana


President-Elect (and former Vice-President) Fairbanks waved his cap in the air. Despite a strong challenge by William Jennings Bryan, the Radicals prevailed. Though the vice-President knew that many were offended by Roosevelt’s emancipation bills, this was more than made up for in additional Negro and Asiatic votes. Those states which were most averse weren’t going to vote Radical anyway.

By a smaller than expected margin of 8%, the Radicals nevertheless maintained the Presidency and the Senate, though the House was nearly even.

Fairbanks wasn’t much of a speaker but he’d practiced for weeks. He made sure to thank the popular outgoing President (whom had actually supported Taft for the Radical nomination) and spoke of the future.

Peace was at hand and the global economy was steadily improving as the wars in Asia and Africa tapered off and the worst unrest in France, the Germanies and Russia settled somewhat.

“Good times are here again!”

New Orleans

Frank “the Barber” Nitto casually lathered up his customer’s jowls as he absently retorted to the local cops, “No, gents, ‘frain I can no help”. He enjoyed playing up his accent for outsiders. “I know nothing of anything stolen. Just barber.”

He knew damned well that the cops had nothing on him else they would have him arrested already. He just stonewalled, a smirk across the Neapolitan’s face. “No can help.”

Departing Brooklyn had been the best idea he ever had. The Irish, the Slav, hell, even the Brazilian gangs outgunned the Italians. Only here in New Orleans did the Italians rule (though mainly Sicilian). Immediately, he’d made allies with the assorted smugglers, brothel-owners, illegal gambling den boss’, etc, etc, etc. The Central Louisiana Bank probably should have had better security.

Presently, the cops gave up after offering a dire warning. There was nothing to trace the robbery to the 26 year-old Neapolitan. He finished up the shave and shouted over his shoulder at the next customer only to do a double-take when he recognized the fellow.

“Ralph Capone! Is that you?”


Aramea-Palastina

General Abdul Hassan did not like the reports he was hearing from either the Ottoman or Egypt. Once intimidated by the European Powers (the Ottoman by Russia and their client state of the Caucasus, Egpyt by the British and French), the troubles of those nations – be they economic or political, weakened the hold on the two preeminent Sunni nations. Already humiliated by the defacto loss of the Hijaz to local rulers, the new Khedive and old Emperor had spent years, decades even, preparing for a reconquest of the Levant.

Hassan, an Alevi whom had been exiled with the majority of his co-religionists from Anatolia in his youth, had made his life in the shockingly diverse Jewish, Christian and Muslim nation of Aramea-Palastina. He’d fought in the Egyptian Campaign of 1880 as a young Captain and steadily rose the ranks. Now on the wrong side of sixty, Hassan remained a vigorous figure.


The Alevi shook his head. While he regretted the treatment of the native Sunni Arabs, once the majority in this territory, now a tiny minority of 5% (Aramea was about 35% Jewish of various denominations, 35% “Christian” of dozens of varieties and the remainder mostly Muslim though most were not of Sunni sects - Alawite, Alevi, Yarsan, Yazidi, Ba’hai, Bab). Half the Sunnis in the land were, in fact, not even Arabs but Bozniak, Greek, Bulgar and Albanian ancestry (mostly having fled over the decades following the Reconquest of the Balkans). None were interested in the Egyptian or Ottoman claims to domination over the Levant and the Holy Lands.

But now, despite a population of 5,000,000 souls, the two most powerful Sunni nations were plotting more and more trouble, often inciting marginalized Aramean Arabs to violence.


Hassan sighed. After a generation of relative peace, it appeared that the Holy Lands would once again be facing a Holy War.

Ankara


“How much did you say you found?”

The Ottoman Porte was stunned. Having watched the French and Russians carve up his ancestor’s Empire over the past century and a half, the Turkish people had been corralled like animals onto the Anatolian Peninsula, evicted from the Caucasus and the Levant.

However, they maintained their rule over most of Arabia, though the Hijaz was largely self-governing under the protection of the infidels. Left only with sand, the Porte rarely bothered to send troops to Arabia to suppress the nomads.

That may have to change, if the geologists were correct.

Oil. Vast, vast pools of it.


It was just possible that the Ottoman Empire may remain a going concern not left upon the scrapheap of history, mourned by none.

Cairo

The young Khedive grinned. At last, after 30 years the national debt had been purged. In effective receivership for his father’s entire reign, Britain and France called the shots until the debt was paid. By treaty, the foreign “advisors” may be discharged from government.

It may take years, but the Khedive vowed to return his nation to preeminence.


Starting with regaining the Sinai from the abomination of Aramea-Palastina.
If those damned Coptics were unhappy about their treatment over the past few years, wait until what happens with the French and British troops depart!

Manchuria

The people were nearly delirious with joy as the Russian and Chinese soldiers departed. The death count had not been tabulated but no doubt the population of Manchuria had been cut in half in the past two generations, so violent were the repressive policies. The only consolation was that neither the Russians or Han had attempted large-scale migration into Manchu traditional lands.

Under the watchful gaze of American, French and British observers, the Manchurian Parliament was already forming. While some longed for a return of a Manchu Dynasty, few natives cared for another Emperor, especially one whose existence would be loathed by the Ming rulers of the vast Han nation to the south.


Praying the peace holds, the Manchu people felt a glimmer of hope for the first time in generations.

The Isle of Wo (Honshu)

The local Han governor was not pleased with the Wa people. Hoping to emulate the Manchu, the Wa rose up against the Emperor…and were thoroughly stamped back into the ground. Reprisals were brutal, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, killed. Vast convoys of rafts sailed from the Isle of Wo to the lesser islands controlled by the White Devils, the Americans to the North and the British to the south.

At least there, the Wa could go by their preferred native self-identified title, the Nipponese or the Yamato, as they preferred.


Any hopes for foreign intervention ended when the Russians signed the armistice. Certainly, the British and Americans weren’t going to intervene.

Once again, the Wa people were left to fend for themselves under the heavy boot of the Han Empire.


Zanzibar, British East Africa

Captain Gangai Aleem had hoped to return to Madras but, alas, the 2nd Tamilstan Regiment was reassigned from the Cape Colony to East Africa. Like much of Africa, the coastal city was a remarkable mix of ethnicities. Indeed, East Africa’s latest immigrant groups came from beyond the British Empire. Many Hindoostan, Chinese and Wa peoples were arriving in vast waves. Sadly, this had to do with a massive famine in northern Hindustan and political repression in the other areas.

But Asia’s loss was Africa’s gain as huge cities were springing up overnight along the eastern coast. Migrants from far inland arrived searching for work. The buzz of activity almost made Aleem forget the ghastly deaths of so many friends to the Boer poison gas attacks. The Boer Republic was a bit of a pariah these days but peace had been signed. For the third time in half a century, the Boers had humbled the might British Empire, proving that London was ill-prepared yet again for war.


Aleem hoped he would never face battle again, that the global truces would hold.

He just couldn’t summon the faith to match that hope.


Hakodate, Chishima Islands

Lieutenant Tomas Montoya of the USS New Hampshire raised his glass to his friends, Yugo Kondo and his army landlubber puke brother, Hiro Kondo.

“Welcome back to American soil, Hiro!”

Recalling his dismal experience in the African hinterlands, the memories of slaughtered tribesmen at the hands of the Anglo-American Joint Protectorate’s government, the soldier nodded, “May I never have to leave it again!”


The Great Plains

President Theodore Roosevelt felt bad he couldn’t make his friend Bill Taft President, but what could one do. His term would be up in a few months and the President wanted to get some hunting in. The elk were huge this time of year.

Ah, retirement. There was nothing like it.


He would be bored within a year.

Chicago

Adolf Polzl didn’t know why Ulyanov was bringing in all these new toughs, some all the way from New York. Now nineteen, the wiry German only occasionally entered his boss’ “social club” being uninterested in guns or whores. But he had to come in occasionally to keep abreast of who was doing what. Ordering a cider from the bar, Polzl nodded at another new gunman, a Jew out of New York.

“Hello, Harry.” Polzl’s Austrian accent remained strong though he was proficient in the English language.


The Jew nodded. “Adolf.” He ordered gin.

“Did you hear about that Kraut, errr, that German gang on Michigan Avenue that is causing trouble?”

“Yes.”

“Want to do something about it?”


Polzl knew that his brother had attempted to quietly get that gang to operate under Ulyanov’s umbrella, but they remained stubborn.

“The boss wants to make an example. I got two of my boys and we’re making a visit tonight. Want to come?”

Polzl thought for a moment and nodded. “Why not?”
 
So the Arabian oil gets found a couple of decades early TTL? Why do I have a feeling this is one of the sparks of WW1?

Because it's like the Balkans, full of competing ethnic groups forced to live in close conditions? And it's got two revanchist powers to its west, with Russia to the North?
Essentially, it's because who/whatever created the world hates the Middle East.
 
OK, all. I'll probably kick off Quasi-War 7 in a week or so.

Any ideas on when it should start?

I'm thinking 1916 to 1920.

Key subplots include:

Growth of organized crime in the United States (Ulyanov/Horowitz/Polzl/Capone
German nationalism
Arrangement of European alliances (I'm thinking a German/Russian axis versus a French-British-Danish-Polish-Bohemian alliance).
the Chinese-American War (still trying to work out the flashpoint, I'm thinking a Honshu rebellion).
War in the Middle East - Ottoman and Egyptian revanchism versus Aramea-Palastina and Russian Caucasus.


Some key issues I have would be a Russian-Polish flashpoint and a Chinese-American flashpoint.
 
Quasi War VII

Wouldn't France ally with Russia against German nationalism? Wouldn't England ally with Germany as a offset to Russian and French power?

Would the Manchus ally with the U.S. to insure their autonomy? Would the U.S. accept an alliance looking for raw materials/new markets and an ally in a tense region? Could this be an alternate flash point for a tripartite war involving the U.S., China and Russia?

Would nationalism rise in the indigenous people of America?
 

Puzzle

Donor
the Chinese-American War (still trying to work out the flashpoint, I'm thinking a Honshu rebellion).
Some key issues I have would be a Russian-Polish flashpoint and a Chinese-American flashpoint.

It seems like the two nations would just flail at each other across the Pacific. I could see either gaining or losing some islands, but that fight doesn't really lend itself to tanks in capitals.
 
that war in the middle east should include Greece on the side of Aramea-Palistena, the Greeks may have Constantinople but 400 years of ottoman domination, the Greek minority living in Anatolia, and the potential economic boon of being the sole controller of the straits should make them still willing to obtain both sides of the Aegean.

also, I vote having it start in 1919-1920 to have the greatest time for each flashpoint to build up and fester. Also, it would have the greatest chance of tanks being ready by the start of each war.
 
Interesting. So we know that there will be Russia vs. China showdown in the upcoming Great War, but I am having trouble seeing the what sides the other nations will take. Obviously it is only the third post so much will be revealed, but by the looks of it war is coming fast, most likely within a couple years of OTL's WWI.

One thing I am wondering is what's technology (both civilian and military) looking like ITTL? a little ahead or behind OTL? Did the airplane still get invented around the same time and how is the airship industry doing?

I went into the technology development in Quasi-War VI a little bit. I would say war material are a few years advanced from OTL. The American Air Corps was inaugurated in 1906ish by President Roosevelt. The Army Mobile Corps was experimenting at the same time on some trucks with armor and machine guns attached. I'll be getting into that in future chapters.

This will be a WWI analog though a few years later.
 
Top